


Turf War

by AlexanderTheMostlyOkay



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fake AH Crew, Funhaus Fuck Pile, Immortal Fake AH Crew, Immortal Funhaus, Multi, Mute Ryan, No mention of Ray because that still hurts a little bit, OT6, Rating May Change, There's more here I'll add as needed, Trans Jack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-11 04:09:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5613460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexanderTheMostlyOkay/pseuds/AlexanderTheMostlyOkay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When there's two immortal crews in town, a little friendly competition can't be avoided.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You know, maybe we could have put more planning into this.” Geoff’s voice crackled over the com, more calm than it probably should have been.

Ryan barked out a laugh, giving his motorcycle more gas while weaving into oncoming traffic. Jeremy was opposite to him, having put his bike onto the shoulder of the highway as to straddle the armored truck they were about to hit.

Michael chimed in, from the relative safety of the chaser vehicle. “We put like five hours into this, right? We’re fine.”

“More than normal,” Jack deadpanned.

Gavin poked her in the side from the passenger seat. “Oh lighten up, this is the easy bit anyways. We almost never muck this part up.”

“When has this _ever_ gone as planned?” Jack quipped back. Gavin gave this a second or two of thought, and quickly shut up.

“Well, we’ve never died.” Jeremy replied with faux-optimism. His voice was warbled and distorted from the wind, so his sarcasm was lost on the rest of the group.

“On that chipper note, let’s start this.” Geoff called from his spot several car lengths ahead of the armored truck. At this point Ryan pulled his pistol and shot out the window of the vehicle, bullet lodged in the driver’s shoulder.

 Jack, as the glass bounced on her windshield, commented, “LSPD’s getting sloppy. Can’t even spring for bullet proof glass?”

“Well they know we’re just going to rob them anyways so they’re just spending less to get from point a to point b, right?” Gavin tried to explain.

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Michael said, working his way through traffic to the hit vehicle.

At this point, the both Ryan and Jeremy had moved up to be almost parallel with the front axle of the truck, forcing it to slow down or hit the pair of them. Geoff has also slowed down and positioned his car with the bummer inches from the armored truck, along with the motorcycles. Jeremy had shot out the windows on the passenger side, his bullet in the guard’s neck. Jeremy wasn’t going to let this little victory go unnoticed and called it out over the com.

“Don’t get a big head kid,” Geoff scoffed, but through a smile.

The driver began to figure out how much shit he was in, and signaled to Ryan that he was pulling over. But, the car was already slowing down to a stop and the traffic was obliviously passing the whole incident. Before the driver could figure out what was happening, Ryan put a bullet through his temple. Because Geoff had blocked it off, it slowed to a stop in the middle of the highway.

Jack and Gavin got out of their car, as Michael did the same a little ways back. He had a duffle bag of C4 slung over his shoulder. “Is that really necessary?” Jack asked, slightly exasperated.

“No, but it’s more fun.”

Ryan had dismounted his bike to come up to the back of the truck, pistol in hand. Instead of waiting for Michael to plant charges, he shot the lock holding the back door in place. His pistol was placed back into his body hostler as he flung the door up. When Michael opened his mouth to complain, he quickly signed, “You were just going to blow the money up.”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

Jack moved to start pulling money out, trying her best to ignore the argument, though it could barely be qualified as such.

Geoff had moved out of his car to inspect the two original passengers and their general dead-ness. He had enlisted Jeremy to start moving them out and into Geoff’s trunk. If everything went well he would take the bodies out to the harbor and dump them. If not, he would just ditch the car as a calling card. It was Gavin’s car anyway, wasn’t like he was going to miss it.

Jeremy called him over to where he had the guard out on the gravel of the shoulder. “You might, uh, want to look at this, boss.” He used the mussel of his rifle to point out a small tattoo, now splattered with blood, along the man’s collarbone. The orange and black mark was pretty unmistakable, causing Geoff the sigh heavily.

“Shit, okay.” Over the coms he began giving orders; “Get whatever money you can and scatter. The rest of Kovic’s boys are going to be here any minute and these ones’ are going to be coming back soon. We’ll meet back up in Michael’s high rise in an hour, max. Any questions?”

No questions were asked so the crew began to fall into place, either shoveling money out of the truck or starting engines. Jeremy was the first to leave, not even taking any money. Ryan followed shortly after, falling in line next to him as the duo worked through downtown traffic to the apartment. The rest followed closely behind, with a small fraction of the cash they had been expecting.

When they all convened back at Michael’s apartment, they started surveying the damages. Geoff also went back into the heist room to try and see what he had missed in his planning, bringing a bottle of whiskey bigger than any of them though necessary or healthy.

Ryan went into the bathroom to wash off his face paint. The new colors had come from a different brand and were irritating his skin, much to everyone’s entertainment. The idea that the big bad Vagabond could be flustered by something as simple as poorly made face paint was pretty assuming to everyone in the crew, not including Ryan himself.

Back in the heist room, Jack ended up on the phone with Matt and Trevor for damage control. She tried to keep her voice even, but the idea of having to deal with the second biggest crew in the city was a little disconcerting. She knew that Kovic wouldn’t go after them for something like this, but that didn’t help the sinking feeling in her stomach.

The Xbox had been turned on to a split-screen Halo match between Michael and Gavin, Ryan watching from a barstool in the kitchen with Jeremy. The game was paused quick and their banter was silenced when Geoff and Jack emerged from the heist room. Even Ryan’s hands dropped to his lap, fingers making loose fists. The rest of the crew felt Jack’s nervousness when she and Geoff came out of the heist room to plop down on the sofa.

The silence went on for a few painful minutes, until Geoff broke the silence. “Well, let’s not do that again.”

…

It had taken a while, but James was starting to come to his senses. He rubbed a spot on his neck where a bullet has formally been lodged, still sore and still a little blurry on everything that had happened. He felt the road burn on his arms and stood up, a little shaken. Surveying the scene, he was a little disappointed no police had shown up.

He saw Joel laying on his side down the road, blood still leaking from the hole in the side of his head. James sighed, pulling him up by his arm and shoving him into the passenger seat of the still running truck. He then went to the back of the truck to close the doors, still sore from coming back.

When he went back to the driver’s side doors, Joel was just coming to.

“Adam’s going to pissed.”


	2. Chapter 2

Fake AH was about twenty minutes away from sending an apology fruit basket to Funhaus. Sure, they had had their quarrels here and there, but never had they tried to directly rob each other. Both acknowledged a fight between two immortal powers would end badly, so Geoff and Adam gave each other wide berths.

Something like this could easy cause a full out war, but not if it was handled well.

That’s why the crew was huddled around Jack’s laptop, trying to find the most appropriate ‘Sorry we shot two of your guys and stole some/a lot of your haul’ fruit basket.

“What the fuck do you think this is going to change?” Michael said from his spot next to Gavin. “We still shot up their truck and killed two of their guys.”

“I would be more pissed about the money if I was one of them,” Gavin chimed in. Michael turned and shot him the universal ‘not helping’ look as a response.

Geoff was pacing in the space between the living room and the kitchen, one hand on the back of his neck, the other around the neck of a bottle of whiskey. As he raised it to his lips, Jack chided him, “We need you sober if we’re going to get this solved.”

“I was drunk when we started the hit anyways, why’s it matter?”

Ryan chuckled and signed to Jeremy, “That explains it.”  

Geoff, slightly unsure on what was said, still took it was an insult, giving Ryan a look as he took another swig of his drink.

Jack was doing her best to ignore the two gents and get on with the pointedly atypical gangster job at hand.  “Are we going to get them the one with pineapple or the one with chocolate?” She mumbled into her computer, scrolling through the webpage.

“One of them is bound to have a sweet-tooth, let’s go with chocolate,” Jeremy muttered into Jack’s shoulder, slowly letting himself sink into the couch cushions. Ryan noticed that Jeremy was no longer paying attention to him and moved closer as well, trying to convince either of them to look at him long enough to let his opinion be known.

Both Jack and Jeremy were getting to the point where they were too far gone. They had done the heist later than expected to begin with, and the initial panic about Funhaus was starting to wear off.

Gavin, who had curled up in the recliner across the room with Michael, spoke up. “Can’t this wait until morning? They won’t even get the order in until tomorrow anyways.” As if to punctuate his point, Michael yawned half way through Gavin’s sentence.

Geoff took one more sip of his drink and started to plod off to one of Michael’s spare bedrooms. “Yeah, that’s enough for tonight, we’ll do more damage control in the morning.”

“Are you seriously taking that to bed, Geoff?” Jack questioned.

“Yes. Now get in here with me, asshole.”

Jack sighed, but relented and closed her laptop. She stood, shaking off Jeremy, who turned his affection towards Ryan. “You want to take Michael’s room?” Ryan signed, “I don’t think Gavin’s going to let him move.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy yawned, getting up and stretching. As he and Ryan exited the living room, he turned the lights off in the main room of the apartment.

Light and sirens beamed in the huge glass panels that showcased the city view outside, but it faded into the background as most of the residents of the apartment drifted off into sleep.

…

It was just past 3 in the morning when Gavin shook Michael awake. “Michael, did anyone take watch?” His whispered, illuminated only by the city outside the window.

Michael sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, letting the severity of their mistake sink in. “Fuck, no.”

“Okay because I just heard something outside the flat.”

“I’ll go check it out,” he said, unwrapping himself from the blankets and Gavin. On his way to the door, he grabbed the rifle they had stashed in the umbrella stand, doing his best to avoid making any noise. Gavin stayed in the living room, grabbing the pistol hidden under the couch.

On the other side of the door, there was a scrapping noise, as if someone was trying to pick the lock. When Michael turned the multiple locks, he heard someone scrabbling away from the door. He turned the knob, shoving the barrel of the gun out the door, into the face of a very startled Lindsay.

“Shit, calm down it’s me,” she snapped, arms up and lock-picking supplied rattling down to the ground.

“You idiot, why would you try to break it?!” Michael replied, dropping his gun and pulling her out from the hallway.

“I heard you guys had some trouble with Funhaus and I wanted to make sure everything was okay over here. Also I lost my key.”

“Well that’s your own damn fault. Why’d you have to break in at,” he paused to check his watch, “3:24 in the fucking morning? This couldn’t have waiting until _anyone_ was awake?”

“I thought someone would be keeping watch,” she replied somewhat sheepishly.

At this point, Gavin had put his pistol away and had moved back to the recliner, wrapping himself in the blanket Michael had thrown off them. Lindsay and Michael walked into the kitchen, and Lindsay moved to start raiding the fridge. Ryan, coming to investigate the noise, walked staunchly down the hallway with an SMG in hand. Once he saw that Lindsay had been the source of the commotion, he put the gun down on the countertop and signed his welcome.

“Why’d you have to get here in the middle of the night?” he asked, shortly before digging a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

“Eh, I was hanging out with B-Team and we all passed out after Matt was on the phone with one of the Funhaus guys for like two hours. They’re both fucking nerds. Trevor also spent way too much time trying to get the money transfer to clear. Did you know they have like 20 different off shore accounts? The guys are even more paranoid than Jack.”

“Wait, you talked with them?” Michael cut her off.

“Yeah! They were actually pretty cool dudes, really understanding. Just wanted to make sure they weren’t putting on an act with us so they could fuck you guys up.”

“So we don’t have to send them a fruit basket?”

“A what?”

“Never mind.”

…

Lawrence hating having to handle relations with other crews. He wished he could leave it Joel, but he was, understandable, not the best person to handle the whole Fake AH situation. But, when he rolled back his chair he felt pretty pleased in what he had accomplished.

 “Got the money from the armored truck back,” he yelled into the room. Half the crew gave a little ‘woo’ in reply and the other half more or less ignored it, absorbed in their current job.

Adam, on the other hand, came up to him. “So, how do you think we should get back at them for this?”

“I mean, I don’t know if we _should_ get back at them. It seemed like an honest mistake and the guy I talked too seemed pretty sorry.”

“Nah we’re totally going to fuck them up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try to update this every one to two days so hold onto your socks I'm going to start pumping out a ton of short chapters  
> I'm also going to focus on AH for the time being with little interludes of FH, hope that's cool


	3. Chapter 3

Despite the Lindsay being a false alarm in the general scheme of things, Ryan still insisted on staying up the rest of the night to keep watch. Michael armed him with a whistle, and Ryan armed himself with the SMG.

Shortly after Michael and Lindsay walked into their bedroom, a very sleepy Jeremy emerged only to stumble into the guest room where Jack and Geoff were sleeping. After the general bed-shuffling was finished, Ryan took the time to turn on the communal Xbox and catch up on his Destiny bounties.

Gavin popped up from his blanket-nest in the recliner, hearing the noise of the Xbox starting up. “God, don’t let me bother you.”

Ryan did nothing more than shrug in response.

After watching the screen for a moment, Gavin quipped, “I thought you hated that game.”

During a quick break in the action, Ryan signed, “I do.”

“Then why are you playing it, you dope?”

“I want to.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“I’m not the one sleeping in the living room.”

“Where else am I going to sleep?”

Ryan stayed focused on the game for a moment, and then paused to say, “I’ll get some headphones in a minute.”

“No you won’t,” Gavin yawned.

“Then get some earplugs,” Ryan said, setting down his controller and getting up. He sauntered back into the kitchen, pulling a diet coke from the fridge and stuffing out his cigarette in the sink basin.

“You can’t just leave that in the sink, Michael’ll kill you,” Gavin said, having followed him to the kitchen while wrapped in his blanket. It gave him the appearance of a small child following his parent around, especially considering the height difference between himself and Ryan.

“Yeah let him try,” Ryan signed back, as he moved back to the couch and set the coke on the coffee table.

By now, Gavin realized that the only way to get Ryan to give him any kind of quiet was to annoy him to the point that he wouldn’t be able to be in the same room as Gavin without the uncontrollable urge to throttle him. “So, I give you a million dollars, but every time you take a piss, you also shit uncontrollably. Would you do it?”

Before Gavin had even finished, Ryan was signing, “You’re never going to give me the money, and you can’t do anything to me. Why does it matter?”

“Rye-bread, it’s just for fun!”

“Nothing fun about it.”

By this point, Gavin’s bait and switch had worked and Ryan turned off Destiny completely and the Xbox dashboard was sitting idle on the TV.

“Fine, can you just turn on Netflix or something? Anything without gunshots.”

Ryan shot him a quick look and tossed the remote to where he was standing behind the couch. “Something bothering you?”

“Nah, it just feels like work, you know?”

Ryan raised an eyebrow but dropped the topic, feeling something off but not thinking it was worth pressing. 

Gavin shuffled, remote in hand, around the couch to sit with Ryan. He collapsed into a sitting position, railing Ryan in the ribs in the process. He made a choked noise and rubbed his side, ribs still slightly bruised from one of their last hits.

“Oops, sorry Ry.”

“It’s fine.” It was obviously not fine.

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, listening to police sirens and the general noise of the city while Gavin’s show buffered.

“Ryan?”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you talk?”

He looked perplexed for a second, wondering where this had come from.

He decided to give the short answer. “I can’t.”

“I know that, you dope.”

“I uh,” his hand flailed about for a couple seconds. Gavin wasn’t sure if he was actually saying anything or just stalling. “First time I died I caught a bayonet in the throat. Didn’t grow back right, my vocal cords are all shot.”

“A what in the throat?”

“A bayonet.”

“Yeah I don’t know what that means can you just write it down?”

“A knife on the end of a gun.”

“Oh okay.” Gavin’s show started, some sitcom Ryan didn’t recognize right away, but sure he would by the opening credits.

“Why did you want to know?” he asked, as Gavin began to bury himself into the couch cushions and Ryan himself.

“Sometimes I can’t understand you and it’s really annoying so if we could fix it somehow, that would be nice. And then you could talk to us! And use the com system for more than just listening!”

“To be honest I don’t even listen that often.”

“Don’t be pissy.”

Ryan laughed, voice crackling and straining.

Gavin moved closer, comforted by the solid up and down movements of Ryan’s chest. Slowly, he started drifting off to sleep.

…

“Hey Peake?”

Matt took off his headphones, giving Adam his attention.

“Did you get any good info on the Fake AH?”

“Not really. They’re all sleeping with each other but that’s standard.”

“You know where their safe houses are?”

“I put Spoole on that.”  

Adam sauntered over to Spoole’s desk, taking a huge swig of his coffee. They had been working a lot later than normal, although no one really wanted to leave when they saw the state that James and Joel were in.

Adam gave him a quick tap on the shoulder and asked, “You know where their hideouts are?”

“Uh, they have like nine from what I can tell. All over Los Santos and outside it too. We would need to follow them pretty closely to get the exact location but I have a general idea.”

“Great, we’ll get Elyse on the road.” He took another drink of coffee. “Bruce?”

“Yeah?”

“You wanna go rob a bank with me?”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I learned so much sign language for this be proud of me


	4. Chapter 4

The house woke up to Geoff’s phone blaring (objectively bad) post-punk music. Ryan is about a half second away from shoving Gavin off his lap and smashing the phone himself as Geoff sprinted out of the guest room, wearing nothing but his underwear, to answer it.

“What is it Kdin?” he barked, voice hoarse and sleep-filled.

He paused as Kdin replied, and began rubbing his temples.

“Jesus dick okay we’ll get out there.”

Jack and Jeremy had poked out of the bedroom, also in various degrees of undress. “What is it?” Jack asked, trying to smooth out her bedhead.

“Some assholes are robbing a bank downtown and they’ve spray-painted ‘fuck fake’ on the inside of all the windows. Kdin said all their equipment looks pretty small time so they’re probably just trying to gain some notoriety. We should shut it down before they become a bigger problem.”

Ryan was now shaking Gavin awake and Jeremy was politely knocking on Michael and Lindsay’s door, before barging in and making a noise that could only be described as a shriek.

“Jeremy we’ve _fucked_ , why are you scared of seeing my dick?” Michael yelled, over Lindsay’s laughter.

Face entirely red, Jeremy supplied to the group in the kitchen, “Did you know they sleep naked?”

Michael walked out, now with pants low-slung on his hips. “Oh my god you looked like you just walked in on your parents doing it. Your face was _priceless._ ”

“It was pretty great,” Ryan signed as he walked in from the living room, Gavin on his heels.

“Does that mean Jeremy’s going to start calling Michael ‘daddy’ now?” Jack commented.

“Hey Michael,” Geoff started, going into his ‘I am a scary mob-boss and I better act like it’ persona, partially to avoid any discussion of a daddy kink. 

“Yeah?”

“You got enough cars for us to head downtown together?”

“Are you seriously asking if I have enough cars? You’ve seen my garage right?” he said, stifling a yawn.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, moving back to the guest room, “Everyone get dressed, we’ve got a job to do. Meet in the garage in ten.”

Gavin, sleepily responded, “Wait, what’re we doing?”

“I’ll explain later,” Ryan signed, “I’m going to get my makeup on now.”

…

Everyone converged on the on the garage at about the same time, and quickly split off into teams. Ryan and Michael jumped into one of Michael’s gaudy silver cars, at the advisement of Geoff; his reasoning being that if they were going to try to scare the rival crew off, they wanted a high profile. Geoff and Jack grabbed a low rider, mostly because Geoff loved driving them, and Gavin and Jeremy went together on the bike Jeremy brought back from their pervious heist. Lindsay grabbed her own car, a low profile hatchback, to get to back to the airport and grab a helicopter in case air support was required.

“Okay guys,” Geoff said over the coms, “We’re going in, we’re fucking them up, and we’re leaving. Any questions?”

He got a resounding silence in reply.

“Okay here we go, meet back at my place asap.”

Michael’s car teared out, leaving skid marks on the pavement. Over the coms the crew could hear Michael yelling for Ryan to “Be fucking careful with it!” and Ryan giving a cackling laugh in reply.

“Why do we let him drive?” Jack commented to Geoff, covering their mics.

“Fuckin’ beats me.”

Jeremy and Gavin sped out right after them, weaving through traffic to catch up to the silver, reflective eye sore. Jack sighed and gunned it in an effort not to lose them.

By the time they made it through Los Santos traffic, cops had already shown up, so they pulled around to a close back alley and sneaked in past the police barricade.  

As soon as they were close enough, Ryan let lose a barrage of gunfire which shattered several of the windows of the bank. “You hit any of them?” Jeremy asked over coms, and Ryan shrugged in reply.

“Grenade out!” Geoff yelled, a smoke grenade into one of the shot out windows. He didn’t want to kill the guys, just frighten them back into not robbing banks and slandering the crew of murders and thieves’ good name.

Michael was not so altruistic, and armed Jeremy and himself with a pair of Molotov cocktails. Ryan shrugged and handed over his lighter, with the mentality of ‘if we can’t rob this bank, no one can.’ The pair hurled the cocktails into the building, pleased when they ignited on contact.

“Alright, I think we scared them enough, let’s move out,” Geoff called out. Jack and Gavin took this as their cue, and pulled the cars around to the rest of the crew. Michael and Ryan kept running to their car, as having two people drive three vehicles was pretty hard in the grand scheme of things.

The pair were still riding the high of pure unadulterated violence when they got back to the car and checked in with the rest of the crew. “Everything clear?” Michael asked to anyone listening.

“Yeah,” Jack replied, “We’re on our way to Geoff’s place, and I can see Gavin and Jeremy in the rearview.”

“We can speak for ourselves just fine!” Gavin said, voice muffled by the wind.

“Well was I wrong?” Jack snapped back.

Gavin replied, sounding dejected, “No.”

…

Elyse sat in traffic just outside the police barricade of the bank, watching Fake AH have their fun. When she saw the grenade come out, she radioed to Bruce and Adam. “Okay, you guys should be good to go. The whole dick brigade is here; I can get follow some of them out.”

“They see you?” Adam called back.

“Even if they did, I’m head to toe in motorcycle gear. I look like a fuckin’ ninja.” Under her breath, she mumbled, “Hurry up, I’m dying in here.”

Finally two of the Fake AH vehicles pulled up and grabbed most of the crew, but a pair high tailed it in a different direction, without cars.  “Two are leaving on foot, I’m following them,” she said over com, before pulling out of traffic.

She followed them for a bit before laughing so hard she spiked the coms. “Holy shit I wish you could see what they’re driving.”


	5. Chapter 5

Michael and Ryan sped down the motorway, out of Los Santos. Ryan has turned his com off, relying on Michael to get info to and from the rest of the crew. “I’m going to make a pit stop at one of my houses,” Michael said, to Ryan as much as to the crew. “I was running out of clean clothes there and I’m not going back to do laundry.”

Ryan nodded, and added, “Do you have some of my face paint there? This new brand is driving me crazy.” Their run back to the car in combination with the Los Santos summer had Ryan’s sweat beading down his forehead and causing the makeup to run directly into his eyes. He looked ghastly, enough so to scare Michael when he turned to look at him.

“Jesus Christ if I don’t I’ll buy you some just don’t look at me.”

Ryan nodded and proceeded to blankly stare straight ahead for the rest of the ride, which was somehow worse, but Michael decided not to mention it.

The sound of the tires bumping over potholes was quiet and comforting. Ryan knew that if he started up Michael, he could keep the conversation going, regardless of the fact his conversation partner was literally mute, so Ryan decided not to push him and enjoy the scenery of the outskirts.

…

By the time the silver monstrosity stopped, Elyse was out of earshot and inconspicuous enough to not draw their attention. She watched the two Fake AH members exit the car (which had been parked with all the grace of a 15-year-old driver’s ED student,) and enter the house, completely unsuspecting. She marked the location on her GPS, and pulled the bike around to look for the rest of the crew.

While the two where in the house, she parked the bike and surveyed the neighborhood. She decided that walking by the house wouldn’t hurt, she had joined Funhaus after the two crews worked together, so they would have to think very hard to even begin to recognize her. So, she lost the biker gear and crossed the street to the house.

She began to think that ‘house’ was a bit of an overstatement. The thing looked barely bigger than a double-wide, like someone had built the first part of a town house and just given up; a top tier gangster should be able to afford better, but she ignored that. She tossed a tracker onto the back bumper of the eye sore and continued walking, hoping to double back to her bike once the pair had left. But, if she knew anything about their crew dynamics, that could take a bit.

…

When they entered, Ryan made a b-line to the bathroom to get the godforsaken face paint off, and Michael grabbed one of his suitcases and emptied the draws of his bedroom dresser into them. As Michael was trying to cram more pairs of socks than entirely necessary into his suitcase, Ryan walked in, hair pulled back and face clean.

He cleared his throat to get Michael’s attention and signed, “Tell Lindsay that I’m sorry that I used all her face wash.”

“Yeah you’re not sorry though.”

Ryan shrugged, pulled off his jacket and threw it on Michael’s bed. He moved to open the blinds and Michael took a moment to appreciate that somehow they all ended up at the same point in history. Michael pulled his jacket off as well, and zipped up his suitcase and pulled Ryan down on his bed. “Isn’t this the one house Lindsay has off limits?” Ryan asked.

“Eh, I’ll wash the sheets. Besides, legally the house belongs to both of us.”

“I didn’t take you as one to care about the law.”

Michael rolled on top of him, pulling the tie out of Ryan’s hair, letting it spread out on the pillow. Ryan’s hands moved up to play with Michael’s hair and neck, straightening out a curl and then letting it go as Michael sat up to pull his shirt off. Ryan immediately went to Michael’s collarbone, tracing the line starting from his throat and moving to his shoulders as Michael leaned down to kiss up and down Ryan’s neck.

Ryan pulled his hands away for a second and began to talk before Michael stopped him. “The crew’ll know what’s up; I told Geoff I had been wanting to have you for myself. Don’t worry.”

Ryan closed his eyes and nodded, enjoying that Michael had known what he was thinking. It was nice not having to spell everything out and bringing both of them out of the moment.

Michael moved back to Ryan’s neck, hands creeping down the hem of his shirt, feeling the lines of his stomach and hips before pulling the shirt over Ryan’s head, messing up his hair in the process. They stayed like that for a while, just enjoying the warmth of the sun coming in from the window, and the brief moment of quietness. Normally when the crew was all together things were either moving very quickly or very loudly, so it was a nice change of pace.

Michael then began moving down Ryan’s chest, making a trail of kisses and nips down his stomach, reaching ever closer to his waist line. Ryan gave a small sigh and put his hands in Michael’s hair as he unbuttoned Ryan’s pants looped his fingers in Ryan’s belt loops and pulled his pants down to his knees, forcing Ryan to let go of his hair.

Michael then continued his kisses from the other direction, starting at the inside of his knees and working his way up. Now that Ryan’s hands were free, he signed, “You treat Lindsay like this?”

“No,” he answered between kisses, “She was the one who taught me.”

Ryan could only nod in reply, wondering what he could do to get her in on this.

…

Elyse was about ready to give up on the ‘walk away slowly and inconspicuously’ plan when she heard the noise coming from the house. She just hoped that the rest of the neighborhood had better sound insulation because those were noises she was never scrubbing from her brain.

She was pretty confident in her placement of the tracker, and decided following them would be a little over the top. Besides, she thought, they’re not coming out of there any time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I didn't set out to write this when I started the fic, it just kinda happened.


	6. Chapter 6

At Geoff’s house, everyone, besides Geoff himself, was starting to wonder where Ryan and Michael ended up. Geoff was making himself another drink in the kitchen, digging through his seemingly infinite liquor cabinet while Jack was mother-ducking over them, trying their coms over and over.

“Why wouldn’t they answer? Nothing could have gone wrong where they fuck are they?”

“They’re banging in Michael’s house,” Geoff mumbled into the liquor cabinet.

“What?” Jack asked, having heard him speak but not what he had actually said.

“I said they’re fucking!”

“Oh,” Jack said, putting the com pack on the table, “That makes sense.”

Gavin and Jeremy perked up from their spots on the couch and paused their Halo match. “Ohhh Ry’s getting some,” Jeremy called out, turning around in his seat.

“Wait, how do you know that?” Jack asked, grabbing a soda from the fridge.

“Michael told me he was going to try and get some tail,” Geoff responded, pulling his head out of the liquor cabinet with a bottle containing a liquid that looked like it could kill a lesser man.

“Wait,” Gavin started, now half way climbed over the couch, knee a bit too close to Jeremy’s face for his liking, “Michael told you, but not any of us?”

Geoff began pouring his drink, which could only be called ‘mixed’ in so much that there was maybe a tablespoon of soda in the bottom of the glass. “Yeah,” he said, sipping like he wasn’t drinking straight whiskey, “I’m his boss, I need to know what this kid gets himself into.”

“Geoff, we’re all banging. Why do you have such an interest in Michael’s sex life?” Jack asked.

“He’s got a nice ass.”

Jeremy did his best to keep his balance on the couch while he shook with laughter. Gavin was not to lucky and fell from his perch on the back of the sofa, slamming his forearm onto the wood floor.

Because that sound, no one heard the door open and Michael and Ryan walk in. They exchanged looks after surveying the scene before them and Ryan signed, “Maybe we wait a bit?” Michael just shrugged and kept walking.

Jeremy, still a little giggly, announced their arrival to the rest of the room. “The lovebirds are back!”

“Jesus Christ, Geoff. Did you have to go out and tell everyone?”

“What the fuck else am I going to say when you two are gone so long?”

“I wanted you to cover for us! Say we were on some super-secret mission or some shit,” Michael said, hand motions getting more and more pronounced.

“We’re gangsters, not the bloody secret service, Michael,” Gavin supplied, pulling himself off the floor.

“Well you just ate shit because Jeremy laughed. Maybe you’re not cut out to speak for all of us,” Jack mumbled.

“You have rooms devoted to explosives, Michael. Jeremy punches people for a living.” Geoff said from the kitchen, between sips of his drink. “Not exactly very secret-agent-y.”

Jeremy opened his mouth to try and defend himself, but stopped before he could start because he couldn’t figure out a counter-point.

…

Elyse parked her bike in the bank of motorcycles Funhaus had collected. James was standing in the doorway to the rest of the crew’s hideout, hands on hips and head slightly cocked.

“Still got a headache?” Elyse asked, peeling her motorcycle gear off.

“Yeah, it’s gone down a bit,” he replied, “but they’re doing some heist planning and my God are they loud. It doesn’t help.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” she said, going up to give James a hug. “I heard so much, James. I don’t think I’m the same woman who left.”

“What?”

“I had to follow two of them to their house and man, I heard some shit.”

“You say that like this whole crew isn’t going at it like rabbits.”

“Well I like these people,” she said, letting go to gesture inside to the rest of the crew.  

“The how about you join them and I find some kind of aspirin that actually works.”

“How’s Joel holding up then?”

“His shoulder hurts more than anything. Spoole has him on a fuckton of morphine.”

“Ah, breaking out the fancy stuff huh?”

“If by fancy you mean a drip bag, then yeah.”

“Why aren’t you on anything?”

“’Cause I’m not a baby.”

Elyse finally pulled away from the hug. “You had a bullet lodged in your frontal cortex. Taking some heavy duty meds after that hardly counts as being a wimp.”

“Yeah maybe I’ll find something then.” James said, grabbing one of the key rings off the wall of the garage. “The guys might want to hear what you found out, should help on the heist plan.”

“Yeah, see you soon.”

“Yeah,” James pulled her back for a second to give her a quick kiss, and then walked away to one of the cars. Elyse then made her way into the hideout, joining the heist planning.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have to take a quick break, my semester starts Monday. Once I figure out my schedule and work load I'll get back to finish this up, thanks for being patient with me!


	7. Chapter 7

“So what’re we doing now?” Gavin asked to everyone sitting at the bar.

“I think one of our group of dealers is getting a little feisty, so I was going to have Jeremy and Michael rough them up a bit,” Geoff said through his lunch. He shot a look over to Ryan, who had lit a cigarette, “Don’t smoke that shit in here, it smells awful.”

With the cigarette in his mouth he signed, “You’ve been drinking longer than I’ve been smoking, don’t give me that shit.”

“Yeah but whiskey doesn’t smell like death.”

“Says the guy who died of alcohol poisoning.”

The crew let out a collective ‘ohh’ at that, most of them with food in their mouths. Lindsay had come back from the airport with a bag of cheap tacos, which were quickly distributed and eaten by the crew. She thought that she had gotten enough to bring back to the B-Team, but ended up just not telling them about the whole taco situation to begin with.

Geoff shot everyone a dirty look, and then turned to Michael and Jeremy. “Just finish eating and I’ll throw you on the com with Kdin. He’s had the targets on surveillance for like a month; he can tell you more than I can.”

Michael took a second to look down at himself, and then to Ryan. Jeremy gave him a side eye as well. “I’m,” Michael started, gesturing down at himself, “still a little gross.”

“I’m not getting in a car with that,” Jeremy said.

Geoff rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. “You didn’t take a goddamn shower at your house?”

“I figured that you wanted us back.”

“Oh for shit’s sake,” Jack mumbled.

“Go take a shower and then fucking go,” Geoff said, “It’s like a live with a bunch of teenagers I swear to God.”

* * *

 

In less than half an hour, Jeremy and Michael were on the road. His hair was still wet from the shower and it was still dripping onto the back of his shirt. Kdin was talking in their ears, giving them the rundown of the job and directions to the dealers’ place. The trunk had been loaded up with a pair of baseball bats and a couple of handguns, nothing heavy-duty.

“Okay, you’re going to take a left up here and then it should be the back of that smoke shop up ahead. See if they’re there, ‘cause they should be, but if not burn it to the ground.”

“Anything we should worry about?” Jeremy asked from the passenger seat.

Kdin paused for a second and typed on his keyboard a bit. “They’ve got a pair of mean-looking Dobermans but I think you guys can handle it.”  

“I am not going to kill a dog,” Michael protested.

“Did I say to kill the dogs? No. Just don’t let them rip you to shreds.”

‘Alright,” Jeremy said as they pulled up, “We’re here. I’m going to turn you off so you’re not buzzing in my ear.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you can’t figure out how to get rid of the feedback.”

“Yeah, it’s Matt’s fault.”

“I’m going to turn both of you off if you can’t stop arguing,” Michael said as he parked.

“You just _turn off_ a per-” Kdin started before Michael cut him off turning off the com set.

Michael opened his door and moved to the truck, passing weapons to Jeremy. He also took one of the pairs of brass knuckles he kept in the side pocket of his truck and passed them to Jeremy. He slid them over his fingers and flexed. “So are we going to go good-cop bad-cop?” Jeremy asked.

“Nah,” Michael said, pulling out his handgun. “We’re going bad-cop bad-cop on this one.”

“Nice,” Jeremy said, closing the trunk.                                                                        

The pair walked up to the store, both silent and trying to look intimidating. It wasn’t really that hard, with Jeremy’s knuckles reflexing the street lights and Michael’s wet hair disguised by the light drizzle that started as they pulled up. Michael gave off the air of a 50’s style mobster, set jaw and hard expression overpowering his modern street clothes. He had a habit of playing up his Jersey accent on jobs like this, giving the look a little bit more context. Jeremy gave off a more ‘standard muscle’ vibe, but still a force to be reckoned with. He had picked a shirt that showed off his muscled arms and the way he moved his hands caused the brass knuckles to flash in the city’s lights every so often. His face mirrored Michael’s expression, adding to the old-money gangster aesthetic Michael was holding up.

As he pushed the door open, the guy at the counter, who previously had been sitting down and smoking with his feet propped up, scrambled to stand and ask them their business. Before the guy could open his mouth, Michael shot him a hard look. “You know what’re here for,” he said, lip slightly upturned.

He just pointed blankly to a nondescript door in the back of the shop labeled ‘employees only’. Michael and Jeremy pushed their way through the mostly empty store. Jeremy grabbed a pack of smokes on their back and leaned into Michael, “For Ryan. He told me he was running low.”

“Oh my God don’t be an enabler.”

Jeremy shrugged as he pocketed the pack, and pushed the back door open for Michael, striding into the back room after him. The room was poorly lit and too humid for the time of year. Jeremy did his best to keep his composure, but his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. There was nothing there, just empty shelves on a dirty concrete floor. Michael pulled his gun and started walking from row to row, knowing something was wrong. He gave Jeremy a quick sign to stay quiet and follow his lead.

In the last row, Jeremy motioned Michael over to his side of the shelving. He came over slowly, pistol outstretched. He dropped his gun to his side when he saw what Jeremy was looking at. The body of one of the dealers was laid out on the middle shelf, decapitated, folded note placed on her chest.

Michael looked at Jeremy, and Jeremy glanced back. “You want to read it, or should I?” Michael said, slightly concerned.

“Nah,” Jeremy replied, picking up the note, “I…I think I’ll read it.” His hands were clumsy, with both the brass knuckles and the tension of the situation. “It, uh,” he said, confused, “It’s blank.”

Michael grabbed the note from him equally as confused. “What do you mean it’s blank?”

The pair was too busy trying to figure that out that they didn’t hear Matt and Bruce walk up behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back from my break! I'll try to keep it regular now.


	8. Chapter 8

At Funhaus, Bruce and Matt were greeted with a heroes’ welcome. Bruce had radioed in their success back to base on the way back, and the rest of the crew was out to meet them in the garage. Before they were even out of the car, Adam and James were pulling Michael and Jeremy out of the trunk, like a sort of gruesome pit crew. 

Bruce stepped out of the car and grabbed the door for Adam, who had Jeremy in tow. “Careful,” he started.

“Yeah I know chloroform is weird on us, I’m being careful.”

“Why didn’t you tie them up?” Spoole asked.

“I didn’t want the owner calling the cops,” Matt said, deadpan as he hung up the keys to the car.

“And the cops would shake your hands,” Adam said, doing his best not to slam Jeremy’s head into the doorframe.

Matt shrugged in reply.

James had thrown Michael over his shoulders and followed Adam into the base. He didn’t have the same regard for their guests’ safety and slammed Michael’s head into the door as he walked in. Michael gave a very small moan in protest, the jolt starting to bring him back to reality.

The entirely of Funhaus froze at the noise, no one really wanting to deal with a very angry and slightly inebriated mobster.

“Okay we’ve got to get them tied up before they wake up. I do not want to have to put a bullet in either of them,” Joel noted with a small shake.

“Okay, I’ll take this one to the first interrogation room, James, you want to take the second one?”

“Yeah, meet you back upstairs,” he replied, being slightly more careful not to bang Michael on anything on his way down.

* * *

 

“You know,” Jack said to Geoff, “I’m getting really tired of Michael’s sexual frustration.”

Geoff put his book down to give her his full attention. “Yeah, I don’t know what his deal is with the one-on-one thing lately. Remind me to talk with him once he and Lil J get back.”

“Just make sure I’m there or else he’ll seduce you with his boyish charm.”

“If he wants to give me a blowjob I’m not going to stop him.”

“I swear you’d be a lot more effective as a leader if you stopped letting your crew get out of work by blowing you.”

Geoff pulled a face of fake offence, turning to pick up his book again. Jack decided that it was time to start going to sleep and pushed the book out of his hands and climbed over him to turn off the bedside lap. Geoff began to protest but gave up as Jack curled up against his chest.  His fingers ran through her hair, still slightly damp from her shower.

He glanced down to the foot of the bed, disappointed as he saw her majority of her feet sticking out from under the sheets. “Aren’t your toes going to get cold?” he asked, chin bumping against the top of her head.

“Yeah but your chest is really warm,” she mumbled, barely audible.

“Goddammit are we going to need to get a bigger bed?”

“Just get someone to grab a blanket from the closet, it’ll be fine,” she replied, a little too warm on Geoff’s chest. “Besides, this is big enough for all six of us.”

“Yeah, if we want to wake up with seven different kinds of cramps. And Gavin would insist on being in in between all of us and then get up in the middle of the night to take a piss.”

“But it would be nice while it lasted.”

Geoff sighed and then called into the house. “Ryan?”

The soft plodding of his sock-less feet came from the hallway and he gave a slight rasp on the door.

“You want to sleep in here with us?” Geoff asked as Ryan opened the door, spreading light from the hallway into the newly-darkened bedroom.

Jack added quickly, “Only if you bring us a blanket.”

He paused for a moment and then signed, “Yeah, just let me make sure Gavin’s awake.” He walked back out, closing the door but not all the way.

They waited for a moment in silence, just enjoying each other’s warmth, with Jack doing her best to ignore her feet growing increasingly colder. Ryan then walked back in, plush blanket on his shoulder. “Could you put that at our feet?” Geoff asked.

He nodded, put down the blanket and climbed in next to Jack, putting his arms around her. It was somewhat uncomfortable, his hand sandwiched between Jack’s neck and Geoff’s upper arm, but warm none the less. It had been a while since he had slept with the pair of them, and while he enjoyed spending time with Michael, Jeremy, and Gavin, they were sometimes a little high energy. Jack and Geoff were much more comfortable just enjoying being with each other. The physical intimacy was almost a side-effect of their relationship, and Ryan adored the casual nature of it.

The three of them drifted off peacefully, sleeping until Geoff’s phone jolted them awake.  His hand searched for the offending noise on his side table, only to knock it onto the ground. Ryan was awake instantly, and was working to unravel himself from Jack, hopefully without waking her. She slept like the dead so he didn’t think it would be an issue, but it was far too early to be waking her without good reason.

Geoff also had torn away from her, leaning down to pick up his still ringing phone. Groggily he answered, “Yeah, this is Geoff.”

His eyes widened as the voice on the other end started talking.

“Yeah, I,” he paused as he looked from the right words, “I’ll be there.”

Ryan gave him a look as grave as his own, silently asking what had caused such a shaky response.

“They, they have Michael and Jeremy.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed and his eyebrows knit together.

“And they want me to go and get them.”


	9. Chapter 9

Jack sat at the kitchen table, the least put together Gavin had ever seen her. Her robe open over her underwear, hair flying off at several different angles. The moment he saw her, he knew something was wrong.

He didn’t get to ask the exact cause before Geoff started yelling.

“Of course I’m going to get them! I’m not letting them fuck with Michael and Jeremy!”

“Yeah, and you’re going to let them fuck with you too,” she said, leaning over the counter to face Geoff eye to eye. From that point, their argument devolved into unintelligible yelling.

Ryan was trying to let his opinion be known, signing frantically, but Geoff and Jack were too busy fighting to pay him any mind.

Gavin, being the one who could talk, interjected for him. “What’s goin’ on!?”

Jack and Geoff stopped to turn to him, and Ryan tried to start explaining, but he was going too fast for Gavin to understand him completely. He caught Michael and Jeremy’s names, but not much beyond that.

“What happened to them?” he asked, voice much smaller than it was previously.

Jack and Geoff exchanged a look, and Geoff began to explain. “I got a call and apparently Michael and Jeremy didn’t come back because Funhaus got them.”

“So are they like, dead in a warehouse somewhere? ‘Cause that’s fixable,” Gavin started, a little confused.

“No, Funhaus _has_ them.”

“Oh,” he said, a little perturbed, “That _is_ a problem.”

* * *

 

Michael woke up, more than a little disoriented, in a very dark, very cement room.  Room was perhaps a little generous; calling it a cell block would be more accurate. He had a vague recollection of how he got there, remembering the dead dealer, and feeling as if he remembered being dragged down a set of stairs.

Unsure how to proceed, he did what he did best and started yelling and cursing into the empty room.  Halfway through his third of fourth line, he heard quick, heavy footsteps from the floor above him, which drew closer and closer. Eventually, they were right aside where he assumed the door to be.

Someone opened a little slot in the door and yelled in, “Would you shut up?”

“You motherfucker I’m going to fuckin' skin you!”

“Yeah no, you’re not,” the voice said, opening the door all the way and temporarily blinding Michael. He began walking behind the chair where he was tied, and undid the tie connecting his wrists to the wood of the chair. “Come on, we’re going upstairs.”

“How the fuck am I going to do that? I can’t pull my goddamn arms off and the back of the chair is too high what do you want from me?”

“Fuckin’ figure it out,” he said, walking to the door. He figured the gangster was still pretty much useless, so felt pretty safe putting his back to him.

Michael sighed and started trying to shimmy his arms over the back of the chair, until the torque of the chair pushed the front legs out from under him, slammed the seat of it into the back of his knees, and dumped him on the ground. His captor heard the thud and turned around reflexively to see Michael on the ground trapped under the chair. He did his best not to break out laughing while he went back to pick Michael up off the ground.

“Alrighty here we go,” the man said, pulling Michael up by the back of his shirt, in a way that was a little too gentle for Michael’s liking or understanding.

“What’d’ya do with Jeremy?” he spit, turning his head to try and face the man holding into his wrists.

“Yeah he’s upstairs too. He was a little less rude, that was nice.”

“Oh I’m sorry you want to take off my fucking shoes or shit? You haven’t been great fucking hosts yourself, you know that?”

“Hey, we didn’t shoot you, count yourselves as luckily.”

“Eat a dick.”

There was no reply to that, as it stood for itself pretty well.

The two walked up the stairs in silence, Michael feeling uneasy with the whole thing. Once they reached the door to the main floor, the man moved to open the door, and did so with a little more showmanship than really necessary.

The scene beyond was…confusing.

The majority of the rival crew lounging on the couches, drinking, a few were smoking cigars, and Jeremy was in the middle of it.

Once he saw Michael, he raised his beer and greeted him.

“Hey, Michael!”

Michael looked at him incredulously. “Are you fucking kidding me? They kidnapped us and you’re fucking drinking with them?”

“Well they gave me the beer.”

“They also locked you in a goddamn basement!”

“Eh, it happens,” he muttered as he took another sip of the beer.

“What do you mean, ‘it happens’?!” The man who brought him upstairs cut his ties and almost immediately, he started gesturing with his hands. “They could have killed us!”

“Well what would that do really?” one of the crew members piped up.

Michael shot him a look. “It would have fucking _killed us?_ ”

He casually pulled down the collar of his shirt, as if he was going to scratch his neck, but subtlety showed off the tattoo on his collarbone.

Michael’s eyes widened and started to stumble over his words, realizing his mistake. “Oh, uh, shit, sorry about the whole, uh, heist thing.”

The man who showed off the tattoo rose to meet Michael, “Eh, it happens,” he chuckled, “I’m Adam, welcome to Funhaus.” He started to gesture around the room, “That’s Joel, Bruce, Spoole,” he turned to the man who escorted him up the stairs, “James.”

“It’s a fucking pleasure,” Michael said, dryly.

“Just wait, we already gave your boss a call, he’s coming to pick you up.”

“What, like we’re kindergarteners or some shit?”

“Yeah, and it’s fucking snack-time, get a beer and enjoy it.”

Michael had really run out of questions, so decided to just take the whole thing at face value, and joined Jeremy on the couch.

"He looks like a clone of you, you know?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm over on [tumblr](http://alexanderthemostlyokay.tumblr.com/) if you want to talk


	10. Chapter 10

Geoff was on the warpath. He had insisted on going alone, but Jack had called up Lindsay to get them a helicopter to follow him, and once he set off, Jack and Lindsay loaded up to keep an eye on him.

Gavin and Ryan were left at the apartment, in name to hold down the base, but in practice just because Geoff was too worried about Michael and Jeremy to even try to keep track of them. He figured that they wouldn’t be in any immediate danger, especially with the firepower they had hidden around the apartment.

Geoff sped through the city, to the location the voice on the phone described. It was a fairly nondescript office building, no signage and a huge (mostly empty) parking garage. To get in, he had to subject himself to what looked like a face scan, but he suspected it was just a camera feed to a security office, because the ‘automated’ voice that came back sounded very human.

He parked next to a low-sitting sports car, painted an obnoxious orange. He took a minute to consider keying it, but decided that it was a project for another day. Once he walked out from behind the car, two members of the crew stepped out from a metal door a few spots down. The one was stoic, arms crossed intimidatingly across his chest, while the other’s body language was much more relaxed and open.

“Hey, Geoff!” he called, opening his arms up like he was expecting a hug.

Geoff remained unmoved. “I guess you’re Adam?”

“Yeah,” Adam replied, a little too cheerfully. “That’s Matt.” He offered a small nod in acknowledgement.

“Alright,” Geoff said, keeping his jaw hard, “Let’s do this.”

Adam rolled his eyes at the crew leader’s severity, and turned to walk back to the metal door. Matt waited a bit, and fell in line behind Geoff. Adam didn’t suspect Geoff would try anything, but it wasn’t a risk he was going to bet on. 

Adam opened the door and let Geoff walk in first, ever the gracious host.

Geoff’s express was almost identical to Michael’s when he saw inside.

“Are you shitting me? Jeremy, Michael, what the fuck?” He demanded, looking around the room. The pair scrambled to stand up and put down their drinks, almost embarrassed in the situation. “Alright you fuckers you’re coming home,” he ordered. They slowly walked to Geoff, and the metaphorical tail between their legs was almost visible.

As they began to walk out, air thick with tension, Adam put his hand on Geoff’s shoulder. “Next time this happens, you’re getting them back in pieces.”

* * *

 

The entire ride back was silent after Geoff called Jack to tell her that everything was in order. She began questioning him, but he hung up before she had finished.

They went slowly through the city, Geoff uncharacteristically following traffic signals and staying off the sidewalks. They pulled into the high-rise’s garage, Geoff methodically stopping the car and getting into the elevator to his floor. Jeremy and Michael followed, his sternness rubbing off on them. 

Gavin and Ryan met them in the doorway, Gavin nearly knocking down Michael and Jeremy with his hug, and Ryan stood off a little ways, mostly happy to see them back and in one piece.

“Oh I thought you guys were toast! I’m so glad you’re back,” Gavin trailed off as he began kissing the pair of them, still in the doorway. They eventually made their way back to the living room, and Geoff departed to go to his office to call Jack and Lindsay, so he could check up on them. Ryan joined him, hoping to get more information out of him. The Lads seemed content kissing first and telling later, so as he walked away he heard the couch being pulled out.

As soon as it was set up, Jeremy laid back on the couch, shirt pulled off over his head. Gavin followed suit, pulled his shirt off and climbed onto him with all the grace of a newborn giraffe. Michael took a second to run off and grab some condoms and lube from their place in the bathroom. By the time he had returned, Gavin and Jeremy were tangled together, Gavin with his knee wedged between Jeremy’s legs, grinding into him. He joined them by moving in place behind Gavin, running his hands down from his chest to his upper thighs, trying to keep in time with Jeremy’s motion.

“Goddamn I’m happy you guys are okay,” Gavin huffed out between small hitches in his breath.

“Don’t you get sappy on us now,” Jeremy said, grinding down further.

Michael started kissing the back of Gavin’s neck, working further and further down, pleased with the whines Gavin was making in the back of his throat.

Jeremy was starting to get bored with the pace Gavin was setting, so he wiggled out from under him and began undoing his pants, trying to pull them off without kneeing Gavin in the chest. Although, he wasn’t sure he would notice with the way Michael’s hands were ghosting along the top of his jeans, eventually toying with the button and zipper.

Michael had moved his body up, so his crotch was lined up with Gavin’s ass, gently rocking his hips against the other man. Jeremy wormed his way back under Gavin, meeting his eyes and moving in for a kiss, then gently catching Gavin’s lips in his teeth, tugging slightly. He let go to start kissing and biting along his neck, moving his hands down to meet Michael’s, inciting a very small gasp from Gavin. Jeremy loved how vocal he was, and did his best to work louder and louder noises out of him.

Just as his hands were dipping into Gavin’s underwear, he heard the door creak open. He had elected to ignore it until her heard Jack gasp from behind him.

“For the love of God why do you three always have to do it in the living room?”

Michael gave a small ‘eh’ noise in reply.

“Well, I’m not getting the fucking couch dry cleaned anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll get up to that E rating eventually, maybe


	11. Chapter 11

“So what do we do now?” Joel asked from behind his wine glass.

Adam shrugged. “Wait for them to slip up. The main crew is pretty hit or miss, but their support is top notch.”

“I don’t know what kind of tech guy they have,” Lawrence piped up, “But he’s good.”

“Yeah what he said,” Adam said, sipping his beer.

“You think we can fuck with them?” James asked.

“Nah, it’s not worth it, let’s just wait it out,” Adam replied.

“Okay,” Bruce said, “But when do we fuck with them?”

* * *

 

Jeremy sauntered into the heist room, shirtless with his pants slung low on his hips. Ryan was on the far side of the table, watching Geoff scribble on the map printed on the whiteboard. Jack was leaning against the back wall, light from the open windows falling over her face and causing her to scrunch up her face to avoid being blinded by the mid-morning sun. Jeremy walked in shoeless and sockless, so his feet were quick against the hardwood floor. He took this opportunity to lean up against the wall by the open door, and listen to Geoff try to explain his plan.

He did a good job at seeming organized, but every once and while he would double back on himself or frantically erase something, relabel another thing, to the point that the heel of him palm was covered in black marker dust.

By the third or fourth revision of the same part of the plan, Jeremy spoke up. “What if we got someone to bring a copter over and land on the hospital? Gavin and I could probably get up there pretty quick.”

“Nah,” Geoff replied, not even looking up, “We have everyone tied up in something else.”

“All of the B-Team too? Matt could probably get it done.”

“I don’t want to risk him getting shot down.”

“Is the heat going to be so bad that they’ll shot down a medical helicopter landing on a hospital?”

“LSPD are a bunch of idiots who care about civilians even less than we do, wouldn’t want Matt to get hit.”

“He can do it, trust me.”

“Yeah but what if he can’t?” Geoff turned around, eyes cold and intense. “We don’t know if he’ll come back. I said I’m not risking it.”

“So that’s what it’s about, you think he’s too squishy.”

“No, I just don’t want his blood on my hands if something goes wrong.”

Jack and Ryan were side-eyeing each other the entire time this conversation took place, trying to figure out who to side with or if to just stay out of it entirely. Ryan chose the latter, hands laying silent in his lap but watching intently. Jack decided the opposite and worked to diffuse the situation, watching as Jeremy and Geoff were slowly inching closer to each other.

“The whole thing wouldn’t work because then we need to find somewhere else to land the copter to drop them off. There’s no good high-rises close to the second hit location.” She said, walking close to the pair.

“Then Gavin and I jump, no big deal,” Jeremy reasoned.

“Yeah but Matt’ll be a sitting duck the entire time,” Jack said trying to appeal to him.

“He’ll be fine,” he insisted. “I’ve known him his whole life, he’s perfectly capable.”

“I say we don’t _risk it,_ ” Geoff stated, eyes narrowing. “And that’s final.”

“You can’t just end an argument with ‘because I said so’,” Jeremy mumbled.

“Jeremy’s got a point,” Ryan signed, but he didn’t think anyone saw it.

“We can go back over it later; we’ve got plenty of time,” Jack reasoned.

“Sure, that’s fine,” Jeremy half said, half spit as he walked out of the heist room. Gavin met him the doorway, very sleepy and very confused, having come into the conversation while it was half way through.

Geoff turned away, back to the whiteboard, working the plans over again. He ignored the sound of Ryan pushing out his chair and plodding out of the room.

* * *

 

Jeremy ended up in one of the guest rooms, poking at his phone. Ryan gave a quick knock on the doorframe, announcing himself before sitting down next to Jeremy on the bed.

“You know he was really worried about you, right?”

Jeremy put his phone on the bedside table so he could devote all his attention to Ryan, a gesture he knew he appreciated.

“Yeah, but he tends to go overboard about those kinds of things, you know? Like that could have been bad, but it wasn’t. I wish he wouldn’t take it out on Matt too.”

“He is pretty soft compared to us.”

“Could you not say that, it looks weird,” Jeremy said, commenting on Ryan’s signing.

“That’s just the word for it, what do you want from me?”

“It just looks like you’re grabbing someone’s nips.”

“How are you grabbing people’s chests’?” He asked, looking genuinely perplexed.

He was searching for an out in the conversation and just wasn’t finding one, so he decided to change the topic.

“Okay, I’m tired from all the hardcore sex Gavin, Michael, and myself had, so do you mind if I spoon you a bit?”

Ryan didn’t quite have a response for that, so he just shrugged and pulled off his jacket, figuring leather wasn’t the most comfortable to sleep on. Jeremy took that as a yes and rolled over, throwing his arm around Ryan, his head nestled in the crook of Ryan’s neck.

Ryan’s hands travelled up from his sides, playing with the short hairs growing on the back of Jeremy’s neck, gently pulling and twisting them in his fingers. The repetitive motion was calming for both of them.

Face pressed against the top of his hair, Ryan breathed in the smell of him, the smell of the rain that hadn’t quiet gone away from the day before, the cigarette smoke, presumably from the dealer’s place, and the smell of sex that still clung to him.

Jeremy also took the quiet moment to enjoy the time with Ryan, feeling the soft rise and fall of his chest, the worn texture of his shirt, the strength in his arms around him. He wished he could have more quiet moments like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's your asl word of the day](http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/s/soft.htm)


End file.
